Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Last two days' studies revisited

TOM PUNCH

Whew. Drawing bigger was a very good idea. I'm drawing on niiice, big bristol with a regular stupid mechanical pencil and I love it. It's just easier to get out a gutsy, sensible drawing quickly. I'm also working on bringing my line quality back to something appealing and smoother. I'm no Chloe Cumming, but it's getting better.

Anyway, I started this while waiting for my exercise class to start (Yeah, I needed an extra credit hour or two, and I need to work to stay in decent shape). I could tell while drawing it that the arm was elongated, but I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, exactly. I erased and redid it a few times and fixed some related problems, but I wound up not totally getting it.

I was pleased to notice in an overlay that I pushed his chest out higher. I did pretty decently with the line of action, which is good. I still end up with a lot of observational problems, though (some rotated angles, some proportions, some placement). Also, as mentioned, I don't know what I was thinking with the punching bag.

The overlay wound up working seperately, which tells me that, if I were able to, I should have double-checked the placement of the initial big forms before going into detail. That wasn't an option at the time, but I gotta be more aware before I go into detail. Because Jerry's head was off, so were all of his details, and I think that's also the cause of (or perhaps an effect of) Tom's head being expanded toward him, so his eye mass could meet his Jerry's little fist. The arm was just an observational error. It isn't as gutsy as the original.

As I mentioned, Tom's face is puffed out to meet Jerry's fist, probably a result of me trying to make sense of the negative space. I'm thinking Tom's face was the actual issue, and it pushed Jerry back in space. It just throws off a TON, even though it's a relatively small mistake, having the cranium extend slightly leftward! Wow.

RED RABBIT

I started this one the night prior. I sketched it up REALLY quickly. It was one of those beautiful moments where things just come out of your pencil just right. It has some accuracy issues, but I was really proud of how darn fast I sketched this one out and made sense of the space. I think this is a good sign.

Overall, this one was more successful than the Tom study in terms of relative placement. Lots of issues with particulars, though-- I fancied the ground higher up than it actually is in the image. Everything that should be planted firmly on the ground is firmly planted on some imaginary surface a few inches above the grass.

Actually, the whole thing has weird stretching issues. The cactus, all the legs, Red's pants, and especially Red's head are squished vertically and, in the case of Red's head, stretched horizontally.

I'm going to do my best to get two done in the next two days, as well. I'm happy with this rate of productivity, I feel like I am genuinely getting back into the swing of it. I also feel a lot better-prepared for my own poses, so I'll be revisiting Tom soon. I don't even know if I'll use the old ones beyond the general idea, it might be easier just to start over.

I need to destroy my own stuff AFTER I'm done with it with a critique (and try to be more conscientious the next time around) rather than belabor over it and take a hundred zillion years to get stuff done. It's gonna take a hell of a lot of work to catch up to these other cartoon college students and I can't do it if I don't just bite my lip and worry about every study. So I've just gotta do. Do do do. Doo-doo.

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This is a Study Blog

This blog is devoted to STUDIES of the traditional cartoon. Most ideas on here are not mine (characters, poses, etc.)-- this is a blog about learning new things about classic cartooning. While I am proud of my work posted here, I can't take credit for the ideas.

I owe a lot to my mentor, John K. He is a great teacher, and many of these studies also use his drawings as a starting point.